I have always been one to take on big visions and perhaps the Urban Farm Fruit Tree Program is one of the biggest…ok well for sure my longest lived project.
25 years ago two interesting things collided…
Creating a vision for the valley.
First, I created a vision for planting 500 fruit trees in central Phoenix. I set out on this adventure to find a local nursery to sell me 50 trees at a discount and the only price I was given was the retail price. That was not a discount and made no sense to me. (By the way, we always work with people that are interested in planning large orchards! Send me an email if that is you.)
So I set out on an adventure to find a wholesale grower. In 1999 I found Dave Wilson Nursery. BUT the big clincher was their minimum order was 100 trees and I only wanted 50 trees to start. So placed the 100 trees order, dove in and planted 50 fruit trees in a friend’s yard, and began making the other 50 trees available for the public. Of course I was answering lots of how to questions along the way.
Fruit Trees that won’t grow fruit.
Second, I discovered that you could, and still can, go into every big box store and some local nurseries and they will sell you a fruit tree that will never make fruit!
And that just made me mad, so I started giving fruit tree classes in my living room to teach people how to select trees that could thrive in our desert..
What I was teaching was everything I had learned since planting my first fruit trees in central Phoenix in 1976. And boy with the help of mentors and a really great team, we have learned a LOT since the program began.
We’ve come a LONG way from those first classes.
Since my first classes held in my living room in 1999, we have helped over 80,000 fruit trees get planted in the low desert with plan on helping thousands and thousands more to get safely planted here in the greater valley!
To this day, The Urban Farm Fruit Tree Program is committed to providing education to residents in the low desert southwest on how to successfully grow productive fruit trees and create more local urban farms.
One of our key features is that we only bring in proven fruit trees that are climate and season appropriate for the low desert, or we identify the ones that are experimental so our customers can shop with confidence. We have done the hard work for you. Plus we source our trees from the absolute best growers and bring them to Phoenix only during prime planting season.
Why plant fruit trees in your garden? Because they can provide a bounty of fruit for decades into the future.
Why buy trees from our program? Because we have your back with our free education programs, Root Camp, Tree Chats, and our guarantee. For 25 years The Urban Farm has been committed to helping our customers succeed. Of that I can promise.
Program’s Annual Launch Event.
Each year at the beginning of September, we offer our fruit tree Launch event (Program Kick Off) with guest speakers and prizes. Then we offer live, weekly classes in September and October on different topics so that you can more completely understand how to successfully grow fruit trees in the desert.
And for year-round education, we offer monthly Tree Chats and our extensive Master Course Root Camp is available on demand. Then we record these events and classes and put them in Root Camp. So sign up today.
Always remember we are on your team. How can we help?
On behalf of the whole team,
Farmer Greg
